Size factors on the Bender-Gestalt test and their relation to trait anxiety and situationally induced anxiety

Abstract

Hutt's hypothesis that anxiety is reflected by absolute size deviations on reproduced Bender‐Gestalt figures was investigated by administering the test to 40 subjects (half under anxiety‐arousing and half under non‐anxiety‐arousing conditions). Measures of trait anxiety and defensive style were found to be intercorrelated significantly and to interact significantly with anxiety condition. Under the non‐anxiety‐arousing condition repressers (low trait anxious subjects) had fewer size distortions than sensitizers (high trait anxious subjects). However, situationally induced anxiety reversed this effect, whereby sensitizers had greater size distortions than repressers. Situationally induced anxiety heightened the performance of sensitizers, while it interfered with the test protocols of repressers by producing greater size deviations on the Bender‐Gestalt.

Induced anxiety, defensive style, and performance on the TAT

“…The verbal facility of this population seems to transcend defensive style so that given a verbal projective technique, these subjects become more expressive under anxiety-provoking conditions. This contrasts with the Rao and Potash (1985) findings on the Bender-Gestalt, where interaction effects between induced anxiety and defensive style were the major result. Given a reproductive drawing task, subjects cannot bind their anxiety by talking, and, therefore, they must resort to their familiar defensive style.…”

“…While anxiety-arousing conditions did produce these outward changes in story format, the dimensions of perceptual repression and overall story quality were unaffected. Hence, situationally induced anxiety changed the more outward aspects of subjects' performance without affecting measures of their underlying psychopathology.Previous research (Rao & Potash, 1985) demonstrated a significant interaction between defensive style (repression-sensitization), situational anxiety, and size distortions in the reproduction of Bender-Gestalt figures. Repressors drew figures closest to scale size when tested under low anxiety conditions, and sensitizers drew figures closer to scale size under high anxiety conditions.…”

“…Previous research (Rao & Potash, 1985) demonstrated a significant interaction between defensive style (repression-sensitization), situational anxiety, and size distortions in the reproduction of Bender-Gestalt figures. Repressors drew figures closest to scale size when tested under low anxiety conditions, and sensitizers drew figures closer to scale size under high anxiety conditions.…”